<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>MAG XXX - Don't Be A Stranger by soupgoblin</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25945057">MAG XXX - Don't Be A Stranger</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupgoblin/pseuds/soupgoblin'>soupgoblin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fake Statements [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fake Episode, Gen, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Screenplay/Script Format, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Lonely - Freeform, The Stranger - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:54:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25945057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupgoblin/pseuds/soupgoblin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Case ########-XX Musings on personhood. Audio recorded by the Archivist, in situ.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fake Statements [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>MAG XXX - Don't Be A Stranger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>idk man sometimes u just don't hang out with anyone one on one for years and then you get particularly in your feels one night. and THEN mid way through writing this u start listening to story break and completely lose ur melancholy mood cause that podcast slaps so then you add a bunch of jmart dicking about to ur sad statement.<br/>aaaanyway I didn't like stranger until I considered lonely touched stranger and then I decided that it completely slapped, so too short, under-edited statement time lets goooo</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[EXT. A DOMAIN OF THE STRANGER]</p><p>[TAPE CLICKS ON.]</p><p>[THE GROUND CRUNCHES WITH FOOTSTEPS AND BAGS JINGLE AS MARTIN AND THE ARCHIVIST WALK.]</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Jon?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Mm?</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>It’s just... are you sure this is a domain of the stranger?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Yes, I am. Why do you ask?</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Well it’s just very... it’s just weird, is all.</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>(a little amused) Yes, Martin, the domains do tend to be a little unsettling. That’s sort of the point.</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>(Interrupting) No, I know that, it’s just not very <em>stranger</em>. It’s dull. And <em>quiet. </em>We’re in, what? A shadowy city at sunset full of people who are ignoring us? It doesn’t seem like Nikola’s style. Isn’t the stranger usually... you know, a big, eye bleeding pain circus or something?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Yes, that’s typically how the stranger manifests. The fears are versatile though, and each domain specifically targets people’s individual fears. Some domains, like the circus, prey on the fear of the people around you being imposters. The fear of strangers.</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>... and this domain?</p><p>[PAUSE.]</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>I think it’s… I think it’s the fear of <em>becoming </em>a stranger.</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Do I want to know what you mean by that?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Well, we’re about to find out in excruciating detail, courtesy of your friend and mine.</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>You need to...?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>(sighing) Yes, I’m afraid</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Right. Well, I’ll be over here. Africa by Toto isn’t going to listen to itself. Very loudly.</p><p>[FABRIC RUSTLES AS MARTIN PUTS ON HEADPHONES, AND THE ARCHIVIST CHUCKLES. MARTIN’S FOOTSTEPS FADE AWAY AS HE GETS OUT OF EARSHOT.]</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>(focusing) Right.</p><p>[THERE IS A PAUSE. THEN, STATIC KICKS IN, AND:]</p><p>ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)</p><p>The sky looks like a painting here. The clouds are orange and fluffy and perfectly still. Maze leaves their apartment to a hallway of blue shadows and half their face is lit up golden. They are spotted by their neighbour, who smiles.</p><p>“Oh, hello,” she says. “Who are you?”</p><p>Maze is pretty sure they’re a person. They’ve checked and they have all the right limbs and eyes and mouths that people are meant to have. They have a name that they picked out just for themself. Maze is sure they exist.</p><p>“Maze,” they say.</p><p>“Oh. Well, don’t be a stranger!”</p><p> </p><p>Maze goes to class. Their seating is assigned, but a girl is sitting in their place. They move to the corner without saying anything. They are not called on during class. On the way home, they see their cat in a stranger’s garden. Funny. They knew their cat did his own thing during the day, but they had forgotten that when they parted ways, he was still out there in real places, doing real things. They forgot he lived in the world too. Their cat starts eating the stranger’s flowers and they hurry past, getting their shoes wet in round puddles perfectly reflecting the sky. When Maze looks in the mirror in their apartment without turning the lights on, they could swear that for a moment, their face looks smoother than it should. Their features are all in the right places, it is their face, but their skin is too soft, they’re too blurry around the edges. Like they’ve turned a filter up too high to quite be human. Like they’re a set piece in the background that you don’t question until you look too closely and notice it’s made of cardboard, and see that it isn’t actually as detailed as your mind filled in. They rub their eyes and their face is perfectly normal, and they don’t look in the mirror again that night.</p><p> </p><p>The next day Maze walks into class, and everyone stares at them. <em>There are no more seats</em>, their apologetic eyes say. They try to explain that <em>we want you here, but there just aren’t enough. It’s nothing against you, we just don’t need any extras for this scene. </em>No one tells Maze to stay, so they leave. No one tells them to do anything else, so they wander the halls. In the glass doors they catch a glimpse of themself, and before they focus, their eyes appear perfectly hollow. After their lecture should have been over, they go to the house of a friend, where they were told to go. The friend opens the door and looks at them in surprise. “You’re here,” she says, like it’s a bizarre statement. “It’s just, I knew you did your own thing. I just didn’t think it was still in my world.” Maze thinks about their cat and considers shoving the flowers in the vase next to the door into their mouth, just to exist in capital letters. No one tells them to though, so they do not.</p><p>“You guys are doing your own thing, it’s ok. I’ll go.” So they do.</p><p>In the hallway of their building their neighbour spots them.</p><p>“Oh, hello,” she says. “Who are you?”</p><p>“Maze,” Maze says.</p><p>“Oh. Well, don’t be a stranger!” they say with a smile and turn away.</p><p>“Um… yeah, sure,” says Maze quietly as she is leaving. The neighbour turns back in surprise when she hears their voice.</p><p>“Oh, hello. Who are you?”</p><p> </p><p>Their house is dark but for the walls lit with perfect neat squares of golden light coming in from the windows locked in a perpetual sundown. Maze stares at their face in the mirror, and it is smooth and unblemished and colourless and <em>not made of skin.</em> They pinch it and they don’t feel a thing. They begin caking on blush, layer after layer, to make themselves look like a person, but it doesn’t stick well. It keeps rubbing off, like if you were putting make up on a mannequin. They scrub their cheeks harder, scraping their “skin” raw, until they are satisfied with their caricature of personhood. Rosy cheeked. Full of blood. Perfect.</p><p> </p><p>They go to Uni knowing there will not be a seat for them in class, because no one tells them not to. They say hello to a friend they see, and he stares at them in utter confusion.</p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>“I’m Maze.”</p><p>“Why are you talking to me?”</p><p>“We’re friends”<br/>
He smiles pityingly.</p><p>“I’m sure you’re very nice, but I’ve got other people, thanks.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>His smile stays on his face as if he cannot imagine feeling anything else.</p><p>“It’s nothing against you, really. We just aren’t that close. I don’t think we should hang out anymore. It’s not your fault,” and he is looking dead in Maze’s eyes, and he is lying, he is lying, he is lying, he is lying, <em>he is lying. </em>He walks away and it is because Maze was not enough for him anymore, and only because Maze was not enough for him anymore, and he is never coming back. Maze stands in the hallway as students push past them and every person is so vibrant, so loud, so alive, they make Maze look sepia and faded. Maze could scream right now and all of them would turn and listen. They could do it. It would be so easy. They’re all so close, elbowing past, ears an inch from their mouth. They could do it. They would all have to look at Maze and know they mattered.</p><p>No one tells them to, so Maze does nothing. But they <em>could, </em>they lie.</p><p> </p><p>The clouds don’t move. They are painted neatly onto the glowing sky. Perfectly shaped, with neat brushstrokes of blue around the edges.</p><p>In their hallway, their neighbour sees Maze.</p><p>“Hello,” says Maze.</p><p>“Fuck off,” she spits. “I don’t want you. I don’t need you. Who even are you?”</p><p>Maze thinks they are a person. Why would they be here if they weren’t? They’re still a person, even if they aren’t always the main character, certainly. The mysterious strangers you don’t fall in love with still get to be people, don’t they? They must. They must. And they have all the right limbs – look;</p><p>Maze raises their arm. Their hand is just right. Perfectly smooth, with neat blush and creases in all the places hands are meant to have them. Bar one single fleck of colour sticking out. Maze reaches and picks at the imperfection. They grasp it with their fingernails and <em>pull. </em>And the layer of paint, of not-skin, peels away, in a long red strip down their finger and across their wrist, like a zipper. Underneath, they are completely hollow. They can see the other side of their hand, shining vaguely red from the light coming in behind the plastic. They think, distantly, that maybe they should feel something about this. But really, what does this change? Who’s going to notice this at all? Their mind feels hollow and hard, and they can’t remember wanting. They don’t bother fixing the paint.</p><p> </p><p>You know, that new neighbour seems really nice.</p><p>Maze really should stop by and stop being such a stranger.</p><p>[HIS STATIC BEGINS RISING AGAIN AS HE SPEAKS THE LAST LINES.]</p><p>[TAPE CLICKS OFF.]</p><p> </p><p>________________________________________________________________</p><p> </p><p>[EXT. A DOMAIN OF THE STRANGER]</p><p>[TAPE CLICKS ON.]</p><p>[THEY ARE WALKING AGAIN.]</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>(suddenly) I’ve decided this domain is worse. Than the circus, I mean. At least there they were obvious about their creepiness. You knew everyone was a monster, I mean. This place feels more like a lonely domain. It just feels like everyone’s judging you. It’s like secondary school all over again.</p><p>[THERE IS NO RESPONSE.]</p><p>MARTIN (CONT’D)</p><p>Jon?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Mm? Oh. Yes, sorry.</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Riiight. (changing the topic) Sooo, what was this place’s statement about?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>It was… um… turning into a mannequin or something, usual spookiness.</p><p>[HE SEEMS TO HAVE MORE TO SAY SO MARTIN DOES NOT BREAK THE SILENCE.]</p><p>ARCHIVIST (CONT'D)</p><p>Martin?</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Yes, Jon?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>You’re… I would never hold you here, but if you were going to leave you would… you would tell me, right? The truth?</p><p>[THE FOOTSTEPS STOP.]</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>The statement was about was about people leaving you, wasn’t it? About having no one real?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>How did you-</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>(interrupting) Lucky guess. And because I know that feeling and I've been thinking about it and that's what this place feels like. Look, Jon, I’m not going to tell you I’m having a swimming time here. But I’m here. And i’m not going anywhere. I promise you that.</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>(barely audible) Right.</p><p>[PAUSE. THEN, FABRIC RUSTLES ;) JON LAUGHS SOFTLY.]</p><p>MARTIN</p><p>Ok but really, that guy is <em>definitely </em>staring at me. Can we please get to the next place? If we’re getting crossover domains now I really just want to get this journey over with as fast as humanly possible.</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Agreed. Alright then, come on. Places to see, people to kill.</p><p>[MARTIN LAUGHS PROPERLY, AND THEIR FOOTSTEPS RESTART.]</p><p>[TAPE CLICKS OFF.]</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>possibly I will edit this more tomorrow, who knows. anyway gonna go listen to more story break peace.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>